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I give thanks to my teachers Ali Akbar Khan and Swapan Chaudhuri for imbuing me with the skills to create this piece of music.

This piece is inspired by the Seven Sages in the stars, the "Sapta Rishi." This piece highlights the significance
of the number 7. For example, this Hang only has 6 pitches. Unlike many other pieces for this tuning of Hang (the D natural minor or Asawari Thaat), I create a tonal center around the F by specifically avoiding the low D drone. The bansuri plays a 7-note scale that dances in between the intervals of the Hang. This is also a 7/8 groove.

There is a bizarre connection to The Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, who have had symbolic significance for star gazers and healers throughout human history and cultures. They were originally the wives of the Saptarishi but all divorced simultaneously!

The Saptarshi (सप्तर्षि saptarṣi a Sanskrit dvigu meaning "seven sages") are the seven rishis who are extolled at many places in the Vedas and Hindu literature. The Vedic Samhitas never actually enumerate these rishis by name, though later Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas and Upanisads do so. They are regarded in the Vedas as the patriarchs of the Vedic religion. The Big Dipper asterism is also called Saptarshi.

The earliest list of the Seven Rishis is given by Jaiminiya Brahmana 2.218-221: Vasiṣṭha, Bharadvāja, Jamadagni, Gautama, Atri, Viśvāmitra, and Agastya, followed by Brihadaranyaka Upanisad 2.2.6 with a slightly different list: Gautama and Bharadvāja, Viśvāmitra and Jamadagni, Vasiṣṭha and Kaśyapa, and Atri. The late Gopatha Brāhmana 1.2.8 has Vasiṣṭha, Viśvāmitra, Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvāja, Guṅgu, Agastya, and Kaśyapa.

credits

from Aharon Wheels Bolsta: Original Works (Featuring the Hang), track released March 2, 2010
Aharon Wheels Bolsta:
Composer, Bansuri Flute, Hang

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